Understanding the New L2 Battle Opened by the Dencun Upgrade Through 8 Chats

As the most important milestone of Ethereum in 2024, the Dencun upgrade has been officially activated on the main network. The most eye-catching one is the introduction of the EIP-4844 proposal that carries blob transactions. For us ordinary Web3 users, the most intuitive change it can bring is a significant reduction in the Gas costs required for transactions and transfers on L2.

You should know that as the most competitive Ethereum track, the competition in L2 has always been intense. So as each L2 gradually integrates with the upcoming Dencun upgrade, who will benefit from its cost reduction and efficiency improvement? And what impact will it have on the L2 pattern in the future?

Therefore, this article aims to peek into which dimensions can monitor the changes in the L2 competition pattern and timely capture the potential signals therein with the help of the Dencun upgrade special page launched by OKLink.

How will the Dencun upgrade affect L2?

The Dencun upgrade includes multiple EIP proposals, with the core content being EIP-4844, EIP-1153 (Temporary Storage), EIP-5656 (MCOPY opcode), EIP-6780 (SELFDESTRUCT opcode), EIP-7044/7055 (Staking Improvements) among these 5 proposals.

Among them, EIP-4844 is the cornerstone of this upgrade-it introduces a transaction model carrying Blobs, which means that L2 can choose not to use the traditional calldata storage mechanism in the future.

So, what is a Blob-carrying transaction? Simply put, it embeds a large amount of transaction data into the blob, which can significantly reduce the storage and processing burden on the Ethereum mainnet.

This directly solves L1 cost issues related to data availability, ensuring that L2 platforms can provide cheaper and faster transactions without compromising the security and decentralization of Ethereum.

Simply put, the biggest change of Blob is that the data uploaded from L2 to L1 changes from the permanent storage of calldata to the temporary storage of Blob. Therefore, it is expected to reduce the Rollup cost by 10-50 times (still to be determined) and increase the transaction throughput. In addition, because Rollup data will no longer compete for normal block space, the cost of other L1 transactions should also be reduced.

From a data perspective, after EIP-4844, it is expected that the L1 part of the transaction cost of Ethereum L2 will be reduced by about 50%-90%, and may even reach 99% under ideal conditions.

In the current situation of rising ETH prices and high mainnet Gas, the cost of ETH transfer on L2 is around 0.5-1 US dollars, which means that L2 integrating EIP-4844 is expected to reduce the cost to between 0.005-0.1 US dollars. Of course, the actual cost is related to different L2 solutions, ETH prices, Gas and other factors, and specific calculations are required.

But at the same time, this will also create a new problem, that is, blob storage is temporary, and its availability time is 4,096 epochs, which is about 18 days.

However, projects like OKLink that have always tended to provide blockchain public products have also announced that they will be responsible for safely storing all blob data to ensure the safety and retrievability of historical data, to support the healthy development of Ethereum and L2 ecosystems, providing a solution that balances cost and reliability.

8 Charts, A Comprehensive Insight into Dencun Upgrade

Here, we will combine the data provided by OKLink’s Dencun upgrade special page to discuss in detail the dimensions from which we can monitor the actual improvement and direct impact of the subsequent Dencun upgrade on each L2 project.

1. L2 Transaction Fees

Firstly, naturally, it is the transaction fees on each L2 network. For L2 end users, cheaper transactions are undoubtedly the most attractive key points.

As shown in the chart below, before the Dencun upgrade, the average transaction fees on each L2 network were generally higher for ZK Rollup than for Optimistic Rollup:

Among them, Polygon zkEVM ranks first with $3.67, while zkSync Era leads with the cheapest transaction cost of $0.39. Overall, the transaction costs of the Optimistic Rollup series are concentrated between $0.41 and $0.97, while Starknet, Scroll and others are generally above $1.5, generally more than double.

You must know that the total transaction cost of the ZK Rollup series L2 previously included sending the proof to the Ethereum chain for verification. With the Dencun upgrade, this cost will drop significantly.

Therefore, the impact on ZK Rollup user perception can be closely monitored - whether it substantially reduces the perceived transaction fees, and increases the user appeal of the ZK Rollup series of L2.

2. L2 daily transactions

On this basis, the daily transaction number of each L2 becomes the most intuitive data of “users voting with their feet”.

OKLink data shows that at present, apart from Linea and zkSync, whose daily transaction counts have exceeded 1 million, the daily transaction counts of other L2s are hovering between 8,000 and 900,000.

If, after the Dencun upgrade is completed, the daily transaction count of an L2 first surges and breaks through the original bottleneck, it means that the EIP-4844 upgrade directly affects the corresponding solution, thus benefiting from it.

3. L2 Daily Transaction Volume

If, after the Dencun upgrade is completed, the daily transaction volume of a certain L2 surges and breaks through the original bottleneck, it means that the EIP-4844 upgrade directly impacts the corresponding solution, thus benefiting from it.

4.L2 TPS

The optimization of TPS means developers have greater flexibility when building and deploying dApps, which is expected to lead to more complex, data-intensive applications, thereby attracting a wider user base.

Therefore, the impact of the Dencun upgrade on the TPS of each L2 is worth special attention, especially for Polygon zkEVM (about 0.09 transactions/second) and Manta Pacific (about 0.5 transactions/second), whose TPS is inherently low:

Compared to Arbitrum and zkSync, which have more than 10 transactions/second, even if there is an increase of the same order of magnitude, the effect could be several times or even tens of times different. This also relates to their ability to support high-throughput, low-cost consumer application scenarios.

5.L2 Address Overview

In the overview of each L2 address, changes in the number of contract addresses directly relate to the practicality and influence on ecological projects and partners.

The total number of active addresses indicates whether it can continue to attract a diverse user group and attract more incremental users through this upgrade.

6.L2 TVB

First, let’s clarify the definition of TVB, which mainly refers to the amount of ETH transferred from Ethereum to each L2 every day. The data of the previous day is updated at 00:00 every morning.

From the data in this dimension, we can directly see the attraction of each L2 to the ETH stock of the Ethereum main chain after the Dencun upgrade - As the attractiveness increases, the number of TVB will obviously increase; as the attractiveness decreases, the number of TVB will be more likely to decrease.

From the internal competition of L2, it might be a zero-sum state of one losing and the other gaining. However, if the overall growth is occurring, it means that the Dencun upgrade has a significant attraction to the entire L2, thereby attracting Ethereum main chain users to migrate ETH to L2.

7.L2 TVL

Currently, Arbitrum and Optimism’s TVL almost dominate among all Layer 2 networks. Therefore, if any L2 project can seize the opportunity of this Dencun upgrade to attract more users and capital inflow, there is no reason why they cannot achieve a leapfrog.

8.L2 currency price

The changes in all the above dimension data ultimately affect the actual performance of the token price. Whoever can lead in the secondary market performance after the Dencun upgrade is undoubtedly the biggest winner.

The New L2 Battle Has Only Just Begun

Overall, from the perspective of us ordinary users, the shakeup that the Dencun upgrade will bring to the competition in the L2 track is far from the end point, but rather the beginning of a new battle.

As time changes, the current start of a new cycle, coupled with the further reduction in cost and TPS from the Dencun upgrade, means that many previously restricted on-chain derivatives and other use cases can be progressively implemented. It’s not impossible that this could trigger a new round of DeFi Summer.

Especially the changes in the data in the dimensions mentioned above, which pave the way for higher transaction throughput and enhanced scalability, directly enable the Ethereum ecosystem to support a wider range of applications and services, thereby attracting a broader user base.

Who will be the biggest winner?

Currently, we do not know, but by continuously tracking and fully grasping the changes in the on-chain data corresponding to L2 using data tools, we can deeply participate in the changes in the new L2 layout and seize potential layout opportunities to profit.

statement:

1. This article is reproduced from [chaincatcher], the original title is “8 pictures to understand the new L2 battle situation opened after Dencun upgrade?”, the copyright belongs to the original author [River], if you have any objection to the reprint, please contact Gate Learn Team , the team will handle it as soon as possible according to relevant procedures.

2. Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article represent only the author’s personal views and do not constitute any investment advice.

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